Honour and Retribution
by Warrior-Silverbolt
Summary: This is the tale of the Sangheili Fal Ra'tum and his companions.  you'll have to read it to find out more...
1. Chapter 1

**Honour and Retribution**

HALO fan fiction by Warrior-Silverbolt

Prologue:

The year is 2554. The Human-Covenant war has officially ended, and the truce between the Humans and Sangheili has held firmly. The remnant races of the Covenant have mostly gone their separate ways, but some still hold on to their deluded beliefs.

The San-Shyum still hold sway over many clans of Jiralhanae, although some have stolen ships and gone back to their warlike and destructive ways.

Whilst the Kig-yar have returned to their pirating and trading, the Unggoy are often found as mercenaries for the lowest bidder. The Mgalekgolo have mostly returned to their home worlds, or are imprisoned by fanatical San-Shyum.

Much of the Covenant's weaponry and supplies remain abandoned on formerly Covenant held worlds and moons. These caches of supplies are held in high value to all the races, but it is simply lack of means to retrieve them that causes them to be left where they are.

As far as every race is concerned, the Demon, Spartan 117 Master Chief is dead.

Never to return to confront them again.

Chapter 1: Fal Ra'tum

Location: Bridge of "_The Bloodied Hand_", Sangheili Frigate, edge of the former outer colonies.

Time: 0:09:40

Fal Ra'tum stared out at the dark vista of space. Beside him stood the lone Mgalekgolo, Quel Norru Hossa. Around them scurried a few of the dozens of Unggoy that Fal had employed upon his ship, "_The Bloodied Hand_". The ship wasn't a large craft. Merely a minor frigate with a small crew of a couple of hundred Unggoy, one Sangheili and a Mgalekgolo.

Fal and his cousins had "liberated" the craft from some San-Shyum who were _very_ unco-operative even when staring down the barrel of Fal's Carbine. On the same raid, they had even retrieved a Huragok from the false Prophets. The Huragok, _The-Right-Balance_, was now the ships engineer, and kept everything humming as it should.

Once Fal and his cousins had _The_ _Bloodied Hand_, they made more raids into San-Shyum outposts. On one such raid, they came across an imprisoned Lekgolo colony. The eel-like creatures expressed that they hated the San-Shyum, and if given the chance, they would fight at the Elite's side. The entire colony was small enough to reside in the single set of custom armour that the San-Shyum had been working on:

A cloak-able suit of Hunter armour.

These Lekgolo became the Mgalekgolo Quel Norru Hossa.

Over the past two years, Fal's cousins had died honourably in raids on supply depots and armouries. So now it was just Fal, Norru, the platoon of Unggoy, and

_The-Right-Balance._

The Bloodied Hand now approached what had once been a powerful Covenant strongpoint; the planet Andarius. Originally Andarius was a Human world,

but when the Covenant arrived, the Hierarchs declared the planet too resource rich to glass, and ordered that the Human population be eradicated.

Planetary scans confirmed plasma signatures all over the planet. Most likely fuelling stations for Covenant war ships. Other signatures weren't as strong, but were detectable none the less.

Probably armouries or other installations running on back up power.

The Unggoy at the ops station yipped happily.

"Shipmaster! The installations are still operational!" he called.

Fal smiled a Sangheili smile. The gods had smiled upon him and his crew.

"Uhhm, Shipmaster…?" it was the grunt at ops, his voice betraying uncertainty and fear.

"Is there a problem?" Fal inquired. The Unggoy began to quiver. He recalled in the times of the Covenant, that once a nipple brother of his had been the bearer of bad news to a Jiralhanae Shipmaster. His nipple brother was savagely torn apart for doing his duty.

Bravely, the little grunt pressed on, remembering that _his_ Shipmaster was a Sangheili.

" There are already two ships in orbit, and there is weapons fire detected on the surface."

Fal's smile had disappeared only to be replaced by a grimace.

"Can you identify the ships?" he asked.

The Unggoy tapped at his console for a moment and then replied;

"One is most certainly Human, the other is…" He paused, tapping at his console again.

"…It was part of the Covenant Fleet! Records indicate that a rogue clan of Jiralhanae commandeered it and fled!"

At the mention of the Jiralhanae, Norru literally bristled, his spines standing on end.

For there were few things that Norru liked better than crushing Jiralhanae bodies beneath his boots and shield alike. He had once observed a pack of Brutes tear apart a pair of fully armed and armoured Mgalekgolo.

Norru turned to Fal.

"If there is a fight, shall we finish it?" he rumbled.

Fal smiled at his companion.

"We shall."


	2. Chapter 2

**Honour and Retribution**

HALO fan fiction by Warrior-Silverbolt

Chapter 2: Mark Darius

Location: Planet Andarius, edge of the former outer colonies.

Time: 0:10:00

Fal, Norru, and about a dozen Unggoy rode to the surface in one of _"the Bloodied Hand_"'s few Phantom drop ships. The usual pre-combat procedures were carried out; checking ammunition levels, the condition of the weapons, etc…

Fal carried a carbine, and his hand decorated sword. This weapon had seen many a battle through his family, and it seemed as though it brought the bearer luck in dire circumstances.

As they deployed, Fal and Norru took in the battlefield; corpses of the combatants littered the ground around the complex. There were Human, Jiralhanae, and even Yanme'e bodies. _They must have been press-ganged into the Jiralhanae's service_, thought Fal. Everyone knew the way that Jiralhanae recruited, If you don't want to be eaten right away, you join up. If you fail later on, you still may end up being the main course.

Not far to the north of their position, Fal could see three lone humans holding out against at least ten Jiralhanae. _Humans are good fighters when in a tight spot,_ Fal noted.

He ordered the Unggoy to begin their assault on the Jiralhanae.

"But what of the Humans, Shipmaster?" said one.

"We shall fight by their side. For now we have a common enemy. We'll deal with them later! Attack!" Fal roared.

As Fal ran by Norru's side, he watched as his friend slowly disappeared from sight.

_I'd like to see the Jiralhanae's faces when a Hunter materialises before them_, Fal thought darkly.

Within minutes battle was joined, and Fal's energy sword had claimed two Jiralhanae.

Just as the Brutes began to realise the new foe, something massive ploughed right through them like they were pins to a bowling ball. Norru de-cloaked and fired multiple rounds into the shocked Jiralhanae.

In the meantime, the grunts were having a real problem with a pair of beserking Brutes, as they only had plasma pistols and the odd needler. Suddenly two shots rang out from behind them and the Brutes flipped head over heels. Apart from the dead Jiralhanae, the only injuries were a couple of squashed grunts when a Brute landed on them. The remaining Unggoy turned to see a Human soldier hefting a sniper rifle.

Despite themselves, they turned back and rejoined the fighting.

The sniper, a Marine known as Mark Darius, call sign "Bugbear", smiled and was sighting his next shot, when he heard an animalistic roar. He turned to see a Jiralhanae rearing up and preparing to tear him limb from limb.

He brought his rifle to bear, but the monster was too close, even with the sniper rifle.

The Brute simply grabbed the long barrel of the weapon and tore it from Mark's grasp and flung it away. On his back now, with the giant Jiralhanae standing over him, Mark closed his eyes and waited for the end.

It didn't come.

He dared to open a single eye and did a double take. The Jiralhanae was still standing, but it was examining a pair of glowing blades protruding from its chest. Slowly it realised it should be dead, and toppled forward.

What Darius saw almost made him reach for his sidearm. Just behind where the Brute had stood, was one of the largest Elites that Darius had ever seen. It nodded at him, took a brief moment to retrieve it's sword from the Jiralhanae's corpse, and left him to rejoin the fight.

_I'll be damned!_ He thought. He got up, and went to inspect his sniper rifle. The Brute had mangled it pretty badly, even though it only had a hold of the rifle for mere seconds. He grabbed a nearby assault rifle, and raced back into the action.

Moments later he found himself fighting alongside the tall Sangheili, and both of them accounting for what the other couldn't. He held suppressive fire, while the Elite cut down any foolhardy Brute that got too close.

For the second time that day he did a double take when he noticed a truly massive shadow to his left; it was a Hunter._ You've gotta be friggin JOKING!_ He thought. _ This is unreal!_

The rest of the battle was short lived, as the surviving Unggoy and Marines rallied to where their leaders were standing, although they were reluctant to do so, as they still considered each other a threat.

In total, there were five Marines including Mark, and only two of the dozen Unggoy left. Mark turned to the Elite and asked, "Why did you and your forces intervene? You could have watched us die and then have dealt with the Brutes on your own."

"I saw that we shared a common enemy. I believe that you would say; the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" replied Fal. Darius seemed to take this well.

"Well, thank you. I'm Mark Darius, head of this party," said Darius.

"My name is Fal Ra'tum. And this is Quel Norru Hossa, My second in command" said Fal, indicating the Hunter at his side.

"Hang on a sec, I thought Hunters were body guards or heavy defence and that" Mark questioned.

"Lets just say that Norru is… Special" Fal replied with a smile.


End file.
